THE CHANGE - CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

PART SIX - CHARLIE'S OLDEST FORGOTTEN FRIEND / EVEN COCKROACHES DREAM

PART SIX

CHARLIE’S OLDEST FORGOTTEN FRIEND

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18TH

LOS ANGELES, CA

EIGHTEEN

Much as I’ve always loved public transport, this seemed like the wrong time to hop a bus. I didn’t like the idea of walking around with that much cash. It was just asking for stupid trouble.

So I grabbed a cab in Burbank, a couple blocks from Zero P. Watched to make sure nobody was following. Mort didn’t have anyone good enough to put a tail on me that I couldn’t spot, so I appreciated the fact that she didn’t even try.

This didn’t mean I could relax behind the ride, exactly. But it did mean that I could take my time a little. That included paying the cabbie to run into a liquor store in Chinatown and grab me a six-pack of Red Stripe and a fifth of Jim Beam, then stop next door for some salt-and-pepper shrimp and an order of pork fried rice.

I wasn’t gonna leave my bags in the cab, and I wasn’t gonna leave my bags in the hotel room, either. These bags would never leave my side.

So I stayed in the back seat, peeping-Tomming the world, while the meter kept running. I could afford it today.

One thing I always liked about Chinese markets was the fact that they left the heads on their carcasses. Swine and foul and fish stared blankly back at me, dead and waiting, through the window displays.

And in the glass cases that defined their fate, innumerable crustaceans swarmed before me. Crabs stacked upon crabs. Lobsters piled upon lobsters. Their fearsome claws bound with thick rubber bands.

It was a horrible thing, but I didn’t see it ending. Not so long as people liked to eat crab. And lobster? Forget it! They were more doomed than doomed. When your flesh was that delicious, how much hope could you have?